Orlando Incident
The Orlando Summer Olympics Terror attacks, commonly referred to afterwards as simply the Orlando Incident, were a series of co-ordinated attacks targeting the Executive Council of Earth and the 2180 Sol Games opening ceremonies as a whole. Targeting first the grounds surrounding the main stadium, 7 suicide bombers set off simultaneous explosions that were following by mass shootings that further targeted the ceremony grounds and stadium itself. Above, the Zephyr-Class cruiser "Copley" of the American military was hijacked and fired upon the Omega-Class destroyer "St. Louis", fatally disabling the destroyer and causing it to plummet below into Orlando's city center. Within the arena two armed attackers using suspected OMEGA weaponry attacked the Executive Council in an attempted assassination of the Earthan leaders. The attacks caused the deaths of 8,683, mainly from the crash of the St. Louis and further injured over 7000. All of the attackers save for the two whom struck at the Executive were confirmed dead, their bodies were never found revealed later to have survived and escaped. Although the attack's ultimate goal failed and the Executive managed to be successfully evacuated, the scale of the attack and massive death toll shocked the Earth and system as a whole. The attack was the highest single loss of life on Earth since the Catastrophe. Almost immediately the nationalities of the attackers were identifies. 20 were Earthan and 23 were Venusian. Although connections with the LLF could not be made the Earth began Operation Corvus only a day after the attacks, striking at suspected LLF sites across the dark side of Luna. Calls for military action against Venus were almost immediate however the Senate would not act until concrete links with the Venusian government at large could be made. Further concern was the massive security lapse which allowed hijackers to gain control of a Earth capital ship as the attack came only two months from the attack on the Chandria Asteroid Base. A raid on an apartment in Sanford, Florida, suspected of being the base of operations for a sleeper cell, found evidence of direct contact with the Venusian government and orders to execute the attack along with evidence of planned further attacks. Although Venus denied involvement in the attacks and did not claim the raided cell as it had other attacks in the past, public outcry to the discovered evidence was too great and the Senate declared war on Venus only days later initiating the Earthan invasion of Venus and the Second Inner-System War as a whole. Attacks Stadium Grounds * At around 8:41 pm local time the anthem of Earth was finishing within the main stadium as the opening ceremonies were underway. At 8:42 pm the final note of the anthem was played and simultaneously 7 suicide bombers detonated the vest they were under their clothing tearing through many of the crowds with massive explosions. 4 exploded within a grand plaza that contained as many as 12,000 people whilst the other 3 exploded near each other in the bazaar area of the grounds damaging three decorative towers, one which later collapsed. * At 8:55 pm as police began evacuating the area and bringing in emergency personnel to tend to the wound around 24 gunmen began firing indiscriminately into the crowds that were leaving. The gunmen fired widely and randomly targeting nothing specifically and injuring more than killing any. Police responded quickly and neutralized the gunmen within 15 minutes. 220 civilians were killed on the stadium grounds. 147 in the bombing attack and a further and 73 from gunfire. A further 384 were injured during this portion of the attack. Copley Attack * The UNS Harare, a Union Armed Forces destroyer loaned to the US forces for security for the games was the first to notice the explosions below. Captain Franklin Donvan ordered all ships into a lower and tighter formation over the stadium as word reached of gunfire. At 9:03 pm. 12 hijackers aboard the USS Copley, a United States Zephyr-Class corvette whom had hidden themselves as engineering staff entered the bridge and killed most of those there including the captain Savion Mitchell effectively hijacking the craft. Once in control of the Copley the hijackers maneuvered the ship over the stadium against the orders of Donvan. Donvan realized something was awry when the ship awkwardly positioned itself over the stadium with its main engines, something unnecessary at that height due to their strength and dangerous due to the radiation they spewed. At 9:12 pm the Copley fired its railgun at full force striking a direct blow against the USS St Louis. The railgun round traveled through the ships center at around a mile a second and exploded near the ships reactor and engines setting them off as well. The ship, effectively disabled, was pulled down by gravity onto the city center below smashing into 3 towers under it collapsing them onto the city streets. A vast majority of deaths and injuries during the attack occurred in this moment with over 5,000 on the St. Louis alone.